


More Than Philosophy

by sextonviolets (fairbreeze)



Series: YOI Halloween Week 2017 [4]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, YOI Halloween Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 18:34:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12870561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairbreeze/pseuds/sextonviolets
Summary: Otabek and Yuri swap ghost stories.  It doesn't go how Otabek expects, but nothing ever does when he's with Yuri.(Things usually go better.)





	More Than Philosophy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grasping4light (serenamaes)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenamaes/gifts).



> This is the longer, edited version of my story for YOI Halloween Week Day 4 - Ghost Stories. 
> 
> I didn't tag this specifically as "underage" because there's nothing explicit in the fic itself, but Yuri is still underage in this and there's a brief reference to sexual content in reference to him. It's small, but if you're very sensitive to that kind of thing, you probably want to skip this one.
> 
> \---
> 
> This fic is dedicated to grasping4light partially in thanks for being a great writing buddy-in-crime (pun intended) and partially because I genuinely don't know whether they're going to love this or hit me with a brick. :3

Otabek has never considered himself to be a superstitious person. The part of Kazakhstan that he's from is urban and while there might be a few holdouts in terms of superstition in the more rural areas, he's only known city streets, never seen much of his own country but the roads to the ice rink, the airport. There's no room in his life for superstitions anyway. He's too busy focusing on making himself better, stronger, winning another medal and the prize money to keep going. There's no room in that for _ghosts_.

He prays sometimes though. Mostly when he needs help, mostly with a touch of ingrained shame for that being the only time he does, but also with not enough shame to change his habits. But even though _he's_ lived his whole life in the city, his mother and his grandmother have not.

His grandmother has _always_ been superstitious, told old stories of spirits and faeries meant to be cautionary tales, to frighten a little. His mother never told those kinds of stories, rarely spoke of the village she had grown up in before she had married his father and moved to the city, but she would leave out small gifts occasionally or toss salt over her shoulder, spread it across a threshold, or hold onto copper coins for good luck. Otabek saw it as a dilution— passing down even more watery to him, until it was just the occasional prayer and a before-skate ritual or two for good luck: a favorite food, a favorite set of training gear, and the occasional whisper of an _amen_. 

He's never really specifically chosen to _reject_ it, however, even if his grandmother would claim otherwise. He would have said, if anyone had ever asked, that it wasn't that he didn't believe in things like ghosts, it was just that life was hard and confusing enough as it was. The world he could see and touch and feel was already bigger than he would ever comprehend. There was little need to add anything supernatural on top of that.

But then, one of those things in life that was hard and that he didn't fully comprehend was _Yuri_ , so when Yuri showed up in Otabek's hotel room saying something about Japanese holidays and ghost stories, Otabek had been easy enough to convince. He's not sure he really understands what Yuri means by _Japanese holidays_ , since Yuri wasn't in Japan this time last year and Otabek is pretty sure Halloween is an American holiday anyway, but he's not going to argue too much. He's finding that it's something of a pattern—that he's both easy to convince and doesn't argue too much—when Yuri's eyes shine a little bit in the asking and he smiles when Otabek says yes.

Otabek would say yes to a lot of things, if it would get Yuri to smile.

So they tell ghost stories. Both of their homelands have more than enough fodder for it. Otabek would say that he's not a very good storyteller, but Yuri looks _rapt_ while he fumbles through a few of his grandmother's old stories, missing some of the key points and having to go back for them and sometimes having to stop and search for the details or for the word in either English or Russian. Yuri, on the other hand, tells everything with an appropriately flair, adding details and side notes mostly to do funny voices and flail his arms around dramatically, it seems. Despite that, most of the tales were versions of things Otabek had heard before and so were both familiar and funny, the way Yuri tells them, not scary. 

Well, or so he'd thought until Yuri left to head back to his own room.

It's not really that he's _scared_ per say—he's _not_! It's just a… vague feeling of being unsettled after talking so much about the unseen, as though he's somehow called attention to himself by doing so. He knows that's pretty ridiculous, all told, but in a transitory place like a hotel room, in a country that's not one he's familiar with, it's hard to shake. All the shadows are in the wrong places and he's sore from skating and his pillow smells like Yuri's conditioner from where he was propped up on it earlier and he just… can't sleep. 

Maybe Yuri can't sleep either—or at least that's what he tells himself. If Yuri was already asleep, he just wouldn't pick up, right? Surely a _text_ was fine, non-intrusive.

He's typing before he can stop himself.

 _Yuri, are you asleep already?_ He'll abbreviate some things, sometimes, but he mostly texts in full, punctuated sentences, which Yuri gives him shit for but he's stubborn about.

 _no. y?_ Yuri… does not.

_Can I… come down there?_

_y? u get scared? :3_

_Maybe. I figure if I come stay with you, your face will keep all the monsters away._ Hey, if Yuri was going to be an ass, two people could play at that.

_yeah come on_

He has to find pants and his shoes, dressing quickly and fighting a rising, completely ridiculous panic; now that he's given in a bit to it, it wants to completely overwhelm him. He _knows_ it's stupid, feeling like this, but he can't help it. He'll feel better when he's not alone, or at least that's what he tells himself all the way down to Yuri's room. 

"You're dumb," is the first thing out of Yuri's mouth when he opens the door but he stands aside and lets Otabek come in, toe out of his shoes. 

"Yeah, maybe a little," he admits, but he also feels like he can _breathe_ again, so he just leaves it alone. Yuri, on the other hand, smirks in the toothy sort of way he does when he knows he's being an asshole and doesn't care, 

"You know, if you wanted to sleep with me, you could have just said so. You didn't have to come up with this ghost story crap." Otabek doesn't quite respond to the part of that he's pretty sure Yuri _wants_ him to respond to, 

"True," is all he says, because he doesn't really want to keep talking about him getting scared about being in his hotel room alone, but they also both know that if all he had wanted to do was come sleep in Yuri's room, he would have just done it. They both have early flights. He's used to being responsible, getting himself up and to the airport on time, early even. It hadn't really occurred to him that sleeping with Yuri was an option until now. He wonders if Yuri was disappointed, before. "But now that I'm here, it seems silly to take the couch." He knows Yuri will take it the wrong way if he doesn't say something like that, that he'll think Otabek doesn't want to be here, which couldn't be further from the truth.

"Really silly," Yuri agrees and huffs over to the bed, climbing in. He's just wearing pajama pants. Otabek shucks out of his shirt on the way over there, turning off lights as he goes, "Maybe… um. Maybe leave the bathroom light on, but close the door most of the way?" Yuri interrupts him, and it's already too dark in the room to be sure, but Otabek can swear that he sees him blushing.

"Sure," if Yuri thinks he's going to make fun of him for it, he should know better. Otabek showed his neck first. He's not the kind to be an asshole about it just to over-compensate for the weakness. It just is what it is. 

Sometimes, Yuri is a thing he doesn't comprehend. Sometimes, though, comprehension is _easy_. Or maybe sometimes there's nothing to comprehend. Yuri is warm when he curls into his arms and he can feel tension coiled between them, like this, a reminder both of the things they've done together already and the things they haven't. Truth be told, it's mostly things they haven't. Yuri is hot-headed, unsurprisingly, single minded about the things he wants, and Otabek… hasn't really stopped him, whenever he's decided he's wanted something. But Otabek is used to having to be responsible and he understands the legality in the difference between their ages, even though he sometimes wishes he didn't. It makes it hard to meet Yuri breath for breath in this and he both hates that it does and maybe is a little glad for it, too. 

There are things that are worth waiting for. 

There are also things that aren't. He's still warming slowly to the idea that Yuri is a thing in his life, that sex could be a thing in his life, or a relationship, or whatever it was that they were building. He's never wanted one before, never felt like it was something missing, never felt like he needed to pursue it. Now, he wants to pursue it desperately and he's suddenly aware that he's not just "silly" but pretty much a _moron_

_Of course_ Yuri wanted him here, ghosts or no.

So here he is, getting them curled more around each other, figuring out positions where they're both comfortable between trading easy kisses, and he's thinking now about how he was thinking, before, about not believing in ghosts, about only believing in what he could feel, and see, and experience. But how much does he really even believe in that, when it comes right down to it? They're not going to see each other for _months_ and he was going to just let him go.

"I'm an idiot," he says, not really sure if Yuri is awake or asleep when he says it. "Next time, you should just tell me to come with you, or that you're staying. It shouldn't have taken me being scared." He knows Yuri will know what he's talking about, if he's awake.

"Hmph," he sounds half asleep, but still manages to sound indignant, "that's a first. Usually people are telling me _not_ to boss them around."

"I'm new at this. I don't know how to figure out what you want if you don't tell me," it's not argumentative; it's just the truth. 

"We should just share a hotel room next time. But you should book it so we're not next to the lovebirds, blegh." Otabek can't help but chuckle softly, 

"Careful, I'm going to start thinking you're jealous." Yuri's arms tightened around him, almost painfully, 

"Why? I don't have anything to be jealous about." Otabek can't help the little grin from forming on his face in the half-light at that, glad Yuri's buried in his chest and he can't see.


End file.
